The Birds' Nest
by Willofthewisp
Summary: The cabin is a ship's heart and Elizabeth has been in the cabin of the Pearl many times, under many different circumstances. But each time becomes more magical until the captain of the ship has no choice but to make it her home. J/E. COMPLETE!
1. The First Night Inside

Wake up, Elizabeth shouted to herself, tightening her closed eyes only to open them to the table set up in the cabin of the _Black Pearl_, half-eaten meats and breads scattered between the puddles of spilled wine and askew silverware. Squatting down to the floor, she leaned her head back against the Baroque leg, with more curves and intricate lines than any of her china dolls at home. To think pirates like Barbossa had such finery. It could make one forget the fact they were unfeeling, walking corpses…temporarily.

"Captain's given you his quarters for the night, poppet," the one with the stringy hair scratching at his shoulders because it feared the top of his head said, flinging open the door. In a split second, the ghostly pallor of his skull faded away to be replaced by blemished, ruddy flesh. He tossed her a wet rag, steam still escaping from it. "Can't see why he'd be botherin' to have ye wipe yer face, seein' as it's gonna be real still once we get to Isla de Muerta."

"Be a better trip than last time, I'd wager," the taller one said from outside the door, the moonlight still exposing his curse.

Before she could roll up the rag and smack either of them with it, they slammed the door shut, leaving her in the massive cabin. Elizabeth burrowed her face into the rag, the rest of her body shivering. She could feel the spray of salt and grain carried by the wind leave her face, just like she had left Port Royal, possibly for good.

Barbossa certainly kept a neat cabin, she thought, crossing to the desk behind the table, closer to the rectangular panels of glass to large to call portholes. How did they expect her to sleep in a place like this? Slipping into the chair, she draped her elbows across the arms and crossed her legs. You there, the hideous one, she fantasized addressing the one that called her poppet. Fetch me my slippers and then turn yourself in to Commodore Norrington. You don't like my orders? One mustn't argue with the captain of the ship. She would then draw a sword from a man's belt and let the blade wobble to and fro right in front of the man's thick throat. Maybe once they reached the island an opportunity would present itself.

Kicking her feet, Elizabeth's foot hit a hard surface. A series of thuds forced her to leap out of the chair. She fell to her hands and knees and crept under the desk. Someone had fashioned a shelf under here. She grabbed onto it and jerked it. One of the nails was probably loose.

The covers of the books had scratches on the leather, binding yellowed pages, but she recognized the titles. Shakespeare. Ovid. There were a couple written in a language she thought at first to be Spanish, but a second glimpse told her Italian. True enough Barbossa possessed a wider vocabulary than she thought, but imagining him curling up into the bed to her left revisiting _A Midsummer Night's Dream_ or _As You Like It _was a little too much to bear.

One of the books was smaller, yet thicker than the others. Elizabeth opened it to find handwritten script extending from margin to margin to maximize space. This was a captain's log with enough entries to fill a year.

The handwritten script extended from margin to margin to save space. Skimming through all the numbers, the knots, the degrees, a sentence caught her eye. _Barbossa knows A. gold. Should stall Jones. _Jones? Who was Jones? Her eyes darted from left to right, up and down, not able to read fast enough. She turned to the next page.

_Misters Pintel and Ragetti act more and more like blathering whelps yipping at Barbossa's heels. _A smile broke through the tears and trauma on her face. It was a grand description. _Bill and I caught them whispering, bloody sots. They clam up when I walk by, which is often since neither seems to understand the concept that a ship can't sail herself, though if one could, it would be this one. _

Elizabeth held her breath, marveling at how she could be held in such suspense when she already knew the ending of this captain's story. Well, this particular story, anyway. She turned to one of the more recent entries, if ten years ago could be considered recent.

_A. gold found at last! That's one problem out of the way. Barbossa…poor sod that I am, I need to get rid of him but can't even turn him in to Beckett. The men speak and sing less and less. I had hoped leading them to the gold, for I was the one that led them to it and not Barbossa, would quell it all but it seems I'm meant to be fortune's fool. The best course of action I can conjure is to chart a voyage back to Spain and leave him. Always leave them where you found them. Works well with whores but I never dreamed it would apply to Barbossa. Bugger. Always someone at the door._

She turned the page. Nothing. She turned to the next one. Nothing. Her fingers danced over every blank page, inspecting each one just to make sure the words wouldn't materialize like a spell book. Oh, Captain, she sighed. Are we to both be victims to the same man?

She placed the fallen texts back on the makeshift shelf and clutched the log to her. Curling her legs under her, she rested her back against the side of the desk and opened the log to the beginning. Bolder, larger handwriting greeted her. A few of the entries were illegible, accompanied by a splotch or two of what Elizabeth guessed was not water. Smiling once again, she read the daily drabbles, each one almost religiously a page long. There were gaps, though, weeks in between the dates as if the captain preferred to forget entirely about what had happened in that time.

The laughter outside the cabin died down, but she pushed it out of her ears and out of her mind. On a regular ship, they might be breaking up the night into shifts, scheduling a few helmsmen with two or three patrolmen, but why would a cursed crew need to sleep? Well, sleep just wouldn't visit the _Black Pearl_ at all tonight, she decided, her eyes falling upon an entry detailing a sacking of a merchant ship. _And thus I clothe my naked villainy with old odd ends, stol'n out of holy writ, And seem a saint when most I play the devil. _

More Shakespeare, she sighed. Oh, Captain, "an honest tale speeds best being plainly told." You see, I can quote _Richard the Third_ as well. But do continue. I didn't mean to interrupt.

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**A/N: Hi, everybody! This is going to be a three-parter, and I hope you'll stay long enough to see why I've decided to rate this one M for Mature. There are so many triangles going on in POTC, one of them being Jack and Barbossa's rivalry for the Pearl, and I'm fascinated by the fact that in the first movie, it's a villains' ship, an adversary that they need to fight and in the next two movies, we see the Pearl for what she really is, a ship that represents freedom with everyone vying for her. I also wanted to experiment with how Elizabeth changes throughout the movies and how the other characters change their perception of her. Please review! Part 2 will be up soon.**


	2. The First Night in Bed

Her eyelids drooped down, her lashes about to hug the sensitive skin under her eyes and refuse to let go until morning. Actually, it was technically morning. Elizabeth rolled onto her back and stared at the darkness above her. I bet many a woman has held this view, she thought, still in awe of the fact she lay alone in Jack's bed. But it was because he offered it to her, she reminded herself. Where was he now, sleeping below decks with his crew? Didn't seem like him.

Fanning her arms out on either side of her, she locked out her elbows, trying to accept sleep with open arms. Too tired to sleep. At least she knew where some reading material lay if she grew desperate.

Kicking one of her discarded boots when she climbed out of the bed, Elizabeth crossed to the desk, now with Jack's charts and tools concealing all traces of the top. Might as well be a textured tablecloth, she laughed to herself, bending down to sort through his books. Most of these stories she loved—Aeneas, Lucifer from John Milton's point of view, all of the Shakespearean plays except _King Lear_…which she now wished Jack had in his possession to put her to sleep. The poetry of Marlowe? She brought her hand to her mouth to stifle a mocking laugh.

"Lizzie?" She almost bumped her head scrambling out from under the desk, obviously not hearing any knocking preceding her name, or his version of it. In half of the clothes she stole, and thank God that this half covered everything, she met his raised eyebrow and smirk.

"I thought you would have the decency to knock."

"You ought to know by now the level and extent of decency I have. How did you know about those?" He lowered his head to point out the small book of Marlowe in her hand.

"You forget I've been in this ship before," she said. "Now I was just about to retire so if you don't mind…"

"Just pullin' the chart out for Marty, love. Most women aren't nearly so anxious to kick me out of here."

"I'm sure it's because you're seldom still around to kick out." She played with the book, passing it from hand to hand, behind her back and circling back to her front. He seemed flattered she had just rummaged through his things, giving her that look she dubbed the I-see-you look, the one that seemed to dissect her from the inside out, the one that sent tremors through her. It was the one he gave her on the _Dauntless _that was enough to, for a split second, make her forget everything else. No, not this time. You're here to get your hands on his chest…no, the chest. The! The dead man's chest that will save both him and Will. Yes. Think of Will, probably in the dank and gloomy brig of the _Flying Dutchman_ without a friend in the world. "What would you have done if I hadn't answered, anyway? Barged in here not caring if I were decent or not?"

"It's me own cabin and no. I would have let you sleep, and from the sounds of it, probably should have let you alone anyway. You're a might out of sorts tonight. Admirer of Marlowe, are you?"

"Hardly." She lifted the book up to signal to him she was about to throw it and tossed it to him.

"Lizzie, darling, if you wanted me to recite poetry to you, all you had to do was ask," he mocked her after catching the book. "Pour a bit of rum, lock the door, watch that face of yours light up with, well, disgust since you seem to have no taste when it comes to poetry at all." He tossed it back to her.

"Rubbish!" She shoved him, laughing, not sure how they were close enough to be within shoving reach in the first place. "Go to bed, Jack."

He lingered, his jaw moving as if it could formulate what to say if it just spent enough time practicing. Back when she visited him in prison, he always asked her to kiss him goodbye when she left, a bit like the Beast always proposing to Beauty after their candlelit dinners. Those were odd times, odder than now, passing out bread to the rest of the prisoners to mask the fact she had really come to inform Jack of Will's progress tracking down Gibbs and the _Pearl. _It was the very last day he was there, the day before his hanging, when she finally gave in and kissed his hand through the rusty bars. Would he ask her tonight to kiss him? She licked her lips.

"If ye decide to rummage some more," he said, "just leave me rum alone." Giving her a fake look of warning, he grinned at her and left, closing the door behind him.

Elizabeth ran her fingers through her hair, more limp than she would have liked to imagine. She fought the temptation to run her fingernails over her bottom row of teeth and dig out all the dirt. Plopping back down onto the bed, she squinted her eyes to compensate for the poor lighting and opened the book, warm now.

**  
**_Come live with me and be my love,  
And we will all the pleasures prove  
That valleys, groves, hills, and fields,  
Woods or steepy mountain yields._

And we will sit upon the rocks,  
Seeing the shepherds feed their flocks,  
By shallow rivers to whose falls  
Melodious birds sing madrigals.

And I will make thee beds of roses  
And a thousand fragrant posies,  
A cap of flowers, and a kirtle  
Embroidered all with leaves of myrtle;

Awful, she shook her head, recounting all her tutors going on and on about Marlowe and Spenser and Sir Walter Raleigh, the last of which decided the nymph, the love of the youth's life, would reject him and refuse to "come live with him and be his love." Cruel. Would she really want to hear Jack's voice saying such drivel? Why Jack? Will.

_The shepherds' swains shall dance and sing  
For thy delight each May morning:  
If these delights thy mind may move,  
Then live with me and be my love._

Sinking deeper into the bed, she folded her arm across her stomach, silently repeating the last stanza in her mind as her fingers slithered up under her blouse. They zigzagged up her side until they reached the fleshy mound that would have been a breast had she been more buxom like Mother. Ha, only girl she knew with her father's chest. But they were there, just small enough for her hand to form a perfect cup over one of them. She tightened her grip on her right breast, repeating just the last stanza of the poem in her mind again and again. Her fingers circled her nipple, protruding outward. Her back arched up at the sensation, rising higher and higher the smaller her circles became.

Elizabeth allowed her other palm to knead her hip, grinding against the bone and following it down to her abdomen. Seizing it, she gasped at her own touch. The man was impossible, unattainable—one who played with her for his own amusement until he tired of her and could cross her off his list and move on to the next one.

An impossible man that defied an establishment for the freedom of a ship full of people the rest of the world decided weren't good enough for freedom. An impossible man that pulled her from the water fully aware that it was the equivalent of walking into the lion's den. An impossible man who kissed her neck back at her house and all but pleaded with her to come with him.

She groaned at the realization two of her fingers managed to crawl their way inside her and massage her. Her eyes rolled back, and a broken inhale heralded the coming of knuckles. Stroking faster and faster, Elizabeth kept squeezing her breast to keep both her hands busy until a dizzying feeling swept over her.

Elizabeth pouted her lips, letting them kiss the air, when her own sweat smeared the pillow. Her toes curled. Her torso bucked. Craning her face until it was buried in the soft folds of the pillow, she growled into it.

It was all she could do to keep from screaming and waking the entire crew. Panting, panting like a used, ruined, wanton harlot, she rolled onto her stomach and exhaled. Some thought was on its way to entering her head, but it fell back to wherever it came from as sleep finally came to her.

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**A/N: The name of this poem is _The Passionate Shepherd to His Love_ and is probably Marlowe's most famous work. Take me back to my high school days... Anyways, I don't own anything POTC. If you want to know about when Jack kissed Elizabeth's neck in more detail, I suggest reading my fic "One or the Other." To read about the interlude between the climax of COTBP and the hanging that didn't take, you'll have to read "The Sparrow's Journey." This is my first Mature fic, so please leave reviews.**


	3. The First Time With Him

His hands gliding from her sides to her back, his tongue rolling around from her own to the roof of her mouth, his back pressed so hard against the bulkhead of the _Pearl _she wondered how he managed to not change positions—it couldn't be real. She broke their kiss just long enough to bite down on his neck.

"Ah, so it's to be that way," Jack gasped, hunching over and taking the flesh where her shoulder met her throat into his mouth, running his teeth up and down her skin. Elizabeth's nails dug into the back of his neck as she cried out, letting him dip her down onto the bed. Unbuttoning her blouse, she closed her eyes at the tingling sensation of his lips on her collarbone. To think the last time she laid in this bed she…

"Did you notice anything different about this bed after I slept in it?" Asking the question in one breath forced a gasp out of her. She had been working at his buttons long before he had carried her to the bed.

"What's that?" It was an amusing angle, Jack's head tilted so his chin rested on her bare chest. He smiled at her laugh and waited for her blush to die.

"I…touched myself thinking about you." She didn't even have time to resume her blushing. That seemed to drain any control he had left. Kicking off his boots, Jack writhed out of his trousers, leaping up and down on the bed until he straddled her completely in the nude. Her fingertips ran up to his bare chest. He'd shown it to her once, well, more like showed her a fraction of his scars in response to her doubting the legends circulating about him. But now it was hers to grope, to reach up to and gloss over with her tongue.

With one thud after another, her boots toppled over each other to the floor. Jack growled at the tightness of her trousers, tugging at them mercilessly. The angle allowed her to see his smooth torso, leading down to a tuft of hair and…she couldn't resist taking it in both her hands, stroking it with all the care she would have had with a mouse in the palm of her hand.

It throbbed in her hands, growing hotter and harder by the second. Elizabeth held it up with one hand and let the fingers of her other hand caress their way down until she reached a soft patch of skin behind his testicles.

"Love, I'm not going to make it if you keep doing that," he murmured, lowering himself so his whole body could grind against hers. His fingers interlocked with hers at the same time her arm stretched outward. She groaned at the sensation of his other hand clenching her thigh, pulling it away from her other one. With one swift motion, she felt him enter.

"Jack," she breathed. All of her felt so completed, reunited with a missing piece of her. Her legs wrapped around his waist.

Rolling them so they laid on their sides, Jack burrowed his face into her neck and kissed it with such hardness, such desperation, she felt he was nursing off of it. Her body rocked up and down the bed, in rhythm with his.

Elizabeth jerked back at the sensation of his hand caressing her bottom, tugging on it to keep her legs tightly entwined around him. Sweat dribbled down to the tips of her hair even though she wasn't the one doing the thrusting. Gasping, she gave him a cold stare when he pulled out of her.

"Turn over."

"What?"

"Trust me, love."

Elizabeth flipped over onto her hands and knees. Face to face with the headboard, she braced with both hands at the sudden thrust into her from behind. How was he piercing so deep into her? A throaty moan escaped her lips. Her head felt like it was attached to her body by a string. The headboard she was looking at began to fade, darkness closing in on it as she couldn't even decipher if her eyes were opened or closed. She could barely breathe, could only hear Jack's moans and her own heartbeat. They seemed to sing in time with each other.

"Jack."

He lowered his body again, his whole front planted on the back of hers. Clamping her hands over one of his, she felt she was swaying back and forth, about to faint. She bit her lip and curled on the mattress. She let out a cry.

Her cry escalated to a scream.

It was enough for Jack's body to tense on top of her, his head snapping back off of her. Her insides heated to the point she thought they might melt. He was taking a long time pulling out of her as his sex softened, a bit like a butterfly breaking out of its cocoon inside her. Once he was out, she rolled back over and gathered him in her arms.

"Sorry."

"Whatever for?" she asked, running her fingers through his hair, feeling his sweat drip onto her chest.

"I meant to pull out of ye before I went off. Can't say now's the best time to make a little baby."

"A baby with you? I can think of worse things." She cupped his face in her hands and gave his lips a light kiss. "I love you."

"Mmm, I love you, Lizzie. Elizabeth." Jack flopped off of her and drooped his arms around her. Elizabeth nestled into them and for a few minutes, there was only the sound of their breathing in the cabin. Just when she thought he'd gone to sleep, he said, "You have to marry me."

She froze, the only sign she still lived were the warm tears running down her face. She turned to face him.

"You'd marry me, wouldn't you, Elizabeth?" He frowned at her tears, trying to wipe them away only to mix them into her cheeks. "That's not a very promising sign."

"Of course I will! Oh, Jack." She threw her arms around him. "Promise you're serious."

"I'd think you'd know by now you're the only woman in the world for me. Of course, we're going to have to change your mind about Marlowe, though."

"Good luck," she laughed, snuggling back into him, fighting the overwhelming urge to fall asleep.

"No, we'll find someone you'll like."

"I don't think so, Jack. Utter the name Marlowe one more time in this bed and I'm out of it." He grinned at her.

"Stay, O sweet and do not rise!/ The light that shines comes from thine eyes/The day breaks not: it is my heart/ Because that you and I must part/Stay or else my joys will die/ And perish in their infancy." He waited for her to snort or swoon, one or the other. "That did nothing for you?"

"It does everything for me," she whispered, finally falling asleep in the Captain's arms.

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**A/N: Hope you enjoyed it! Please leave a review. The poem in this chapter is John Donne's _Daybreak_**_, _**a poet I actually like.**


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